Mighty Macs

Dome of the rotunda of Immaculata University, where the Macs were received with a large train station on Ash Wednesday 1974.

Mighty Macs is the nickname for all of the athletic teams in the athletics department at Immaculata University in Malvern, Chester County , Pennsylvania . The women's basketball team achieved particular fame in the early 1970s, when the college championship was won three times in a row. Those teams from 1972 to 1974 were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014 and their actions were filmed.

The University

Immaculata University was founded in 1920 by the Congregation of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 20 miles outside of Philadelphia as Villa Maria College for Girls . In 1928 the name was changed. Cardinal Dennis Dougherty , whose authority in the period after the Second Vatican Council may arouse incomprehension, established between 1918 and 1951 a comprehensive education system from elementary to college in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for almost 100% of the youth of the congregation and financed exclusively by donations. Many nuns were employed in this system and thus enabled a high school education free of charge. The Catholic youth also benefited from the moderate tuition fees and, unlike in other cities, were able to attend a university as a lower-class offspring. In addition to the education system, there were banks, insurance companies, businesses and hospitals that made it possible to provide religious support in almost all areas of life.

Immaculata even had lower tuition fees than comparable colleges in Pennsylvania and was explicitly aimed at second and third generation immigrants from the working class . The protégés should be taught a civic demeanor and the courses rarely had a career as a goal, as it was assumed that young girls would retire from working life after marriage, which is why the main focus was on the liberal arts and the humanities .

Immaculata College received university dignity in 2002 and has been co-educational since 2005 , even if almost 75% of the student body is still female (as of 2018).

The athletics department of the college

The athletics department of Immaculata College, playing in sky blue and white, has existed since 1939 and its athletes were called "Mackies" until the 1960s, while the term "Macks" was reserved for the nuns. In 1965 the student body voted for the Scotch Terrier as a mascot , which, based on Scottish clan names, led to the nickname "Macs". The "Mighty" was only added by the West Chester Daily Local News local journalist George Heaslip after the first college championship.

The athletics division plays in Division III of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which excludes athletic scholarships . The university played in the Colonial States Athletic Conference until 2017/18 and has been in the newly founded Atlantic East Conference since 2018/19 .

Sports practiced by both sexes:
basketball Soccer Cross country run golf lacrosse	athletics swim tennis volleyball
Sports practiced by women:	Sports practiced by men:
Softball Field hockey	baseball

Women's basketball in the United States

Basketball, developed in the Protestant YMCA , quickly established itself as the preferred sport of the working class. The sport got by in the narrow urban working-class neighborhoods without the necessary equipment and in the smallest of spaces, which is why it was soon to be part of the culture of the Catholic , Jewish and, at the latest, since the Great Migration, also of the African-American lower classes. In the Catholic part of Philadelphia, because of a lack of money, basketball was mostly offered as a school sport. On the distribution of basketball in Philadelphia also the prohibition of "national" contributed to a church congregations in, eventually leading to an interior and exterior view of those Germans , Irish , Italians , Poles and others as "Catholic Americans" as opposed to "European immigrants" and thus led to a sprawling and confident community. On the other hand, the Philadelphia Catholic League , a high school league for basketball, American football and athletics founded by Monsignor John Bonner in 1920 , contributed to the spread of basketball. For Bonner, sporting competition was part of upbringing because of the moral lessons inherent in it. When he was appointed superintendent of the schools in 1926 , he naturally relied on the expansion of this league, which was so dominant in and around Philadelphia that the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) based on the YMCA in Philadelphia only established itself relatively late in the late 1940s grasped. Women's basketball benefited from Cardinal Dougherty's belief that education should be segregated by the sexes. Unlike in other poor dioceses , two schools were always built, one for boys and one for girls. And so the women inevitably also took part in the sporting competition.

Which was by no means taken for granted. Because, unlike in Europe, women's sport was controversial for a significantly longer period in the US and was not generally accepted until the 1950s and 1960s, after the Cold War between the US and the USSR had taken hold . At the beginning of the 20th century, women were advised not to participate too extensively in the big cycling trend in order to avoid the creation of the “cyclist face”. It was also feared that exercise could damage the reproductive organs and warned against a general masculinization of the physical and mental nature. In addition, the sporting competition did not get along with supposedly female virtues and qualities. Because of this, colleges often met for so-called Play Days , on which the athletic teams split up and consisted of equal numbers of both teams, and sports could be played . It was intended to let the competition take a back seat in favor of the cooperation. In addition, physical contact was to be reduced, which led to special women's rules, because middle and upper class eyes viewed sport for women only as a pastime for non-working wives , while lower class women were of course used to hard physical activity from childhood.

At the end of the 19th century, a rules committee of the Division for Girls' and Women's Sports (DGWS) was formed, in which the "mother of women's basketball" Senda Berenson Abbott took part, and which should take account of the allegedly indulgent female nature. Two years earlier, in 1897, Alice Bertha Foster of Bryn Mawr College had had to go on a medical campaign for the benefits of women's basketball, after all women were still wearing corsets at the time . These rules led to a division of the field into three, later two parts, which the six players per team were not allowed to leave. In the early 1960s, the rover was introduced, a player who was allowed to act in both halves of the game. The dribblings were also limited , they increased from one dribble in front of the pass through two and three to an unlimited number of dribbles. These rules were in effect at the college level in the Northeast United States until 1971, and in Iowa until the 1990s. At Immaculata College, physical contact was always considered a foul and even legal steals or jump balls were sanctioned to limit aggression - there was also an apology ritual - and to emphasize ladylike behavior.

Of course, women also played according to men's rules. For example, Ora Mae Washington's Philadelphia Tribune Girls of the 1920s and 1930s played almost exclusively full-field basketball. Because the DGWS only regulated college basketball and not professional and semi-professional works and challenge teams, international basketball, the competition of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) or high school sports. The Philadelphia Catholic League was still played according to DGWS rules, which was probably due to the early start of the game, when there was no competition from public schools or these did not offer inter-school basketball and only allowed it to be played within their own walls. In the immigrant families with many children, on the other hand, the daughters naturally played basketball variants such as “three against three” or “HORSE” in their free time on playgrounds or behind the house with their brothers and parents, and this was usually extremely intense as a sibling rivalry. Informal Immaculata teams therefore already existed in the 1920s before the athletics department was founded. Women's basketball was well respected in and around Philadelphia, and high school players like Liz Ann Kelly, Grace's sister , played to four-digit numbers. Players from Immaculata College are usually composed of the captains of their former high school teams.

The Mighty Macs

The Mackies celebrated their first success in 1946 when there were no tournaments or championships for women by winning the Mythical Championship . A Mythical Championship is a final or series of finals between two teams consensually considered to be the best in a season. The most honorable thing is of course a perfect season without a defeat, but cross-cross comparisons are also used to determine the strength of the game. This determination is just as good or bad as the determination by the table of a league establishment.

Captain Eva "Evie" Adams (Atkinson), Betty and Peggy Bissinger, Rita Haley, Pat Brennan and Helen "Toddy" Kirsch, who later became known by her religious name Sister Marita David Kirsch, were to beat the Temple University Owlettes , who were under hers Coach Pat Collins had built a true basketball dynasty in the 1940s. Immaculata coach Marie Schultes (McGuinness), team boss from 1943 to 1947, himself studied at the public and co-educational Temple University under mentor Collins. Until that March 5th, a Tuesday, Temple had been unbeaten for a full four years.

Basketball was a high priority at Immaculata College. Beverly Blee (later sister of Agnes Frederick Blee to another order) recalls in Julie Byrnes O God of Players , despite the danger of being expelled from school with some friends, hitchhiking to a high school game forbidden. The students were picked up by college president Monsignor Francis Furey of all people, who wanted to go to the same game. Immaculata graduate and high school basketball star sister Mary of Lourdes McDevitt made no secret of her sympathy for the basketball team when she was named his successor in 1954. Even though the budget was small, Sister Mary always found sponsors for uniforms, snacks, and balls. And when the Field House burned down in 1967 , she raised money in record time for a multifunctional hall that opened in 1971. The many years before 1950 and between 1967 and 1971 without a venue of their own fueled the myth of the working class underdog of the Catholic university .

This myth was reflected in the discrepancy between boarding school students and female commuters . Only female boarding school students were given the typical college experience, which led to greater prestige and higher status with more offices, while the female commuters felt more like “tolerated”. The basketball team, on the other hand, mostly fed on those “underdog” commuters who could meet to play basketball on the streets and playgrounds of the city center after school ended. In the team, however, these differences faded and commuters were allowed to change in the dormitories of the boarding school students.

The students admired their female coaches as role models , which would later apply to their Methodist coach Jenepher Shillingford and the Baptist Cathy Rush in the 1970s. It is unclear whether the mild and flexible image of Mary of the Order ever a role model should have for the students, because already in the 40s was the goal of education , the economically and spiritually independent woman as a Catholic leader. The students themselves perceived the nuns as feminists and proudly adopted the image of the “lady”. The players therefore emphasized their femininity on and off the field, followed the school's internal dress code ( stockings , skirts with a minimum length, no sleeveless dresses ) and wore underwear and bras on the field and even in training until 1963 , with bloomers over them (what Daisy Duck wears) , long black or blue cotton stockings with suspenders , a white blouse and tunics with belts and sometimes aprons , as well as socks and shoes, mostly Chuck Taylor 's hi-tops . In addition to gender norms, the image of the “lady” can also stand for a Catholic identity , since social identities always reflect and interpret reality.

The trips together were popular among the players because they broadened their horizons, but at the same time also protected them. On these trips, the Mackies and later the Macs identified with other women, but at the same time they strengthened their own community in light of their differences as Catholics. Many opponents offered the team to burn their uniforms for them so that they could get new ones, but the tunics lasted until 1972 and shorts could not be worn until 1974.

Games of great importance were of course games against Protestant colleges, because victories seemed to "avenge" the discrimination against Catholics on the field, and games against "rich" Catholic colleges like arch rivals Rosemont because they fed the myth of the underdog and of course games against colleges that majored in sports or even awarded sports scholarships because this seemed to contradict the “dignity of the game”. The win against the 15-time AAU champion of the semi-professional Wayland Baptist Flying Queens in 1975 was therefore particularly well received. Games with a special character were also games against historically black colleges . The Mighty Macs liked to cultivate their image as women with street credibility, but felt weak and threatened by playing and trash talk against African American women. Interesting that thirty years earlier the Bennett College (black) players felt the same way about the Philadelphia Tribune Girls . For example, it was mocked that the newsgirls took a sip from the corn schnapps bottle at half-time.

When Catholic immigrants became white Americans in the 1960s, skin color was a factor in identity, as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had to learn painfully as a young Lew Alcindor. White intellectuals perceived race as a greater difference than nationality , language or religion , they felt threatened by blacks in a travesty of history, or they boasted a “color blindness” that only served to deny or absorb black culture. These cases all defend whiteness as a privilege .

The Immaculata College had an interracial club since 1936 , which contradicted a white Catholicism with its work. Black players played for the Mighty Macs themselves from 1974 onwards, after blacks had attended college since the 1960s. Protestants have been allowed to study in the college since its inception.

The players expressed their identity as Catholics by signing the cross before free throws , taking a vow of silence between seminars on match day and praying together or alone or by going to church . They prayed to God and patron saint St. athlete Christopher , she in the years when the his holiness was disallowed, with "Mr. Christophorus ”for the victory, although according to the nuns that was not possible. Rather, they prayed for protection and guidance. The nuns had created a more spiritual environment at the school rather than just imposing Catholicism. And so the term "Spirit" mixed into a team, school and Holy Spirit . In any case, the team often thought they were feeling a presence that was larger than the parts of themselves, the dramatic intensification of a divine closeness. In order to experience such security with rituals , the team prayed together before games:

O God of Players, hear our prayer
To play this game, and play it fair,
To conquer, win, but if to lose
Not to revile, nor to abuse
But with understanding, start again,
Give us strength, O Lord, Amen.

The fans , however, were singing hymns and as a team anthem the apocalyptic When the Macs Go Marching In a variation of the black spirituals When the Saints Go Marching In , of the Last Judgment summons.

Title IX and the full field game

After the introduction of the rover by the DGWS in 1961, the DGWS and AAU formed a joint rules committee in 1965. The Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (CIAW) allowed the Ganzfeld trial for the first time in the 1969/70 and 1970/71 seasons. In 1971/72, with the approval of the DGWS, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) emerged in order to guarantee schools memberships and democratic representation. In contrast to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, sports scholarships were even completely prohibited in the first year. The AIAW organized the first of eleven basketball tournaments in 1972 until the AIAW was absorbed by the NCAA as part of Title IX in 1982. The NCAA hosted the first NCAA Division I basketball championship for women in 1982 in competition with the AIAW tournament, so that in 1982 there were two champions. Or three, because there was also a competitive tournament organized by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) since last year.

Jenepher Shillingford had played Ganzfeld from time to time during her tenure from 1961 to 1970 in training. When she became director of the athletics department in 1970, she hired young mother Cathy Rush of local rival West Chester State College for an annual salary of $ 450, who had graduated only two years earlier and has only coached a junior college for one season would have. Rush had played under coach Lucille Kyvallos, who trained the full field game and had to be fired in 1966 because she violated association rules by trying to compete in an AAU tournament. Her successor Carol Eckman, however, also vehemently advocated a rule change.

Cathy Rush was married to Ed T. Rush, a referee for the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was looking for a diversion for the NBA season. Compared to West Chester, Immaculata College was downhill: there were no food or travel packages. In the meantime, many former players worked at local high schools, who sent their best players to Immaculata College. There Rush, like Shillingford before, attended mass and got along well with the nuns she called "penguins", while they threatened to proselytize both her and her players in a humorous way.

In her sophomore year as a coach, the first with a national championship, Rush had a win record of 24-0 victories during the regular season . The only defeat was in the final of the regional qualifier in Towson , Maryland against her alma mater . Immaculata made it in addition to the ten masters as the team with the highest points in the conference, nevertheless among the last 16 at the national college championships in Normal (Illinois) . The team almost couldn't have started the trip because there was no budget for air travel. Sister Mary of Lourdes McDevitt stepped in and persuaded every single board member to pay for at least one plane ticket. Of the eleven players, eight could be sent to Chicago on a standby flight together with Rush .

With a biscuit diet and sleeping together in a hotel bed, the Macs managed the miracle: Between March 16 and 19, 1972, they made it to the finals as Seed 15 to meet their rival from across town and West Chester State 52— Beat 48. The players themselves didn't realize they were making history. They hadn't known about the tournament, had no seeding, and apart from playing basketball, they acted like schoolgirls on a school trip, stuffing themselves on junk food and watching TV on the hotel TV. The team was flown home first class and awaited by 600 fans at the airport. Women's basketball had been a Catholic tradition and that tradition suddenly seemed fresh and new.

Just before the 1972-73 season, Congress passed Title IX as part of the Education Amendment of 1972 that outlawed sexual discrimination in federally funded educational institutions. Those institutions were obliged to create equal opportunities at all levels, also with regard to sports offers and scholarships. Before the amendment could take effect, it was blocked by the resistance of the major American football universities until the summer of 1975 in protracted legal disputes. The hand of the law was little compared to its power in the imagination of the American public. However, the first changes became apparent. The Mighty Macs, the Nuns, and Cathy Rush knew that their window to fame was about to close because Immaculata couldn't stand up to the money from the big universities. At first, however, the Macs played a perfect season and made it to the semi-finals at Queens College in New York between March 22 and 25, 1973 without any problems . They faced strong resistance against Southern Connecticut State and were behind the entire game. Single-handedly, Theresa Shank (Olympia bronze 1992 and longtime college coach) fought for victory in the last three minutes. In the final, they won against the hosts of Queens College under Cathy Rush's former coach Lucille Kyvallos.

Queens College took revenge in the 1973/74 season and ended Immaculata's streak of 35 straight wins on an emblematic Ash Wednesday . Remaining fans, fellow students and nuns prepared a big reception for the team at midnight on the same evening in the Villa Maria Hall , the rotunda of the college building, to recognize its achievements in the hour of defeat. The remaining games were won and the team traveled in three buses full of players, fans and nuns in a 28-hour drive to Kansas State University for the national championship tournament from March 20 to 23, 1974. The toughest opponent was again waiting in the semifinals with William Penn College of Iowa, which lost by three points. In the final, the Mighty Macs faced Mississippi College and secured their third title in a row. In July, the team embarked on a tour to Australia sponsored by AIAW and the Victorian Basketball Association , becoming the first women's college team to play overseas.

With the second title defense, the view of women’s basketball was finally changed and the media took notice. The discrepancy between female pioneering and the traditional ideal of femininity of the Macs was sometimes exploited, especially in view of Rush's attractiveness. The Macs, as the Cinderella team , drew many fans to their side because their game was viewed as unsullied by commerce . In any case, a women's basketball game had never been broadcast on national television before the 1974/75 season. In January the Macs defeated the University of Maryland 80-48. The games were certainly good-looking and fast, as the 30-second shot clock was introduced years before the men this season . A month later, the Macs, along with Queens College, were the first women's team at Madison Square Garden in a double header with Fairfield University and the University of Massachusetts . Half of the 12,000 spectators left the hall after the Macs game.

At the championship tournament of the AIAW Division I between March 19 and 22, 1975 at James Madison University in Harrisonburg (Virginia) , Immaculata defeated Wayland Baptist in the quarterfinals, but lost in the final with 81-90 to the next team, which was a three- peat , Delta State University from Cleveland (Mississippi), coached by Lily Margaret Wade . In 1976 the final pairing was Macs against Delta and again Immaculata 64-69 was defeated by the scholarship school. 1977 was for the Macs in the Final Four against the Lady Tigers of Louisiana State University over . Immaculata took fourth place. Title IX was starting to make itself felt. In contrast to Immaculata College, the big universities were able to offer their players scholarships and pay coaches, so that with the distribution of federal funds, most female coaches subsequently lost control of their teams and athletics departments. However, the level of play rose in the long run and anomalies like Immaculata and Queens faded from consciousness. Cathy Rush retired as a coach in 1977 with a record of 149-15 wins and a rate of 90.9%. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 2008. In 2014, the championship teams were accepted from 1972-1973-1974.

The teams

1971/72

Denise Conway (Crawford), Elizabeth "Betty Ann" Hoffman (Quinn), Judy Marra (Martelli), Maureen Mooney, Rene Muth (Portland), Sue (Forsyth) O'Grady, Patricia Opila, Janet Ruch (Boltz), Theresa Shank (Grentz), Maureen Stuhlman, Janet Young (Eline)

Cathy Rush (Head Coach), Rene Mack (Student Manager)

1972/73

Denise Conway (Crawford), Marianne Crawford (Stanley), Elizabeth "Betty Ann" Hoffman (Quinn), Judy Marra (Martelli), Maureen Mooney, Rene Muth (Portland), Janet Ruch (Boltz), Ann Sadowski, Theresa Shank (Grentz ), Maureen Stuhlman, Janet Young (Eline)

Cathy Rush (Head Coach)

1973/74

Denise Conway (Crawford), Marianne Crawford (Stanley), Barbara Deuble (Kelly), Tina Krah, Marie Liguori (Williams), Judy Marra (Martelli), Patricia Mulhern (Loughran), Rene Muth (Portland), Mary Scharff, Theresa Shank (Grentz), Janet Young (Eline)

Cathy Rush (Head Coach)

The legacy of the Mighty Macs

Judy Marra later married Phil Martelli, the head coach of Saint Joseph's University . Tina Krah, later director of the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship Tournament, Rene Muth Portland, Marianne Crawford Stanley and Theresa Shank Grentz became successful Division I college coaches themselves .

Two-time All-American player Stanley started her career as an assistant coach at Cathy Rush, won three national championships (2 × AIAW, 1 × NCAA) in the 1970s and 1980s and now (as of 2018) works for the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). Three-time All-American Grentz won the 1990 Women's Basketball World Cup and an Olympic bronze medal at the XXV Games. Olympics . She was president of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) and won an AIAW championship. Mary Scharff coached the Macs from 1986 to 1998, making it the longest-serving Immaculata coach up to that point.

Rush, Grentz, and Stanley were inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000, 2001, and 2002 .

The film

In 2011 the film The Mighty Macs (German: The big dream of success ) was released about the history of the championship teams , directed by Tim Chambers with Carla Gugino , Ellen Burstyn , Marley Shelton and David Boreanaz . Some of the former players played nuns in it. And Cathy Rush, as a bank clerk, pays Carla Gugino a check for 90 dollars 90 (Rush's win rate).

See also

• List of members of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

literature

• Julie Byrne: O God of Players. The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs. New York, 2003: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12749-9 (in English).
• Cait Murphy: A History of American Sports in 100 Objects. New York, 2016: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-09774-6 (pages 181-186, in English).
• Jennifer H. Lansbury: A Spectacular Leap. Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America. Fayetteville, 2014: The University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 978-1-55728-658-1 (in English).
• J. Thomas Jable: The Philadelphia Tribune Newsgirls: African American Women's Basketball at Its Best in: Separate Games. African American Sport behind the Walls of Segregation , edited by David K. Wiggins and Ryan A. Swanson. Fayetteville, 2016: The University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 978-1-68226-017-3 (pages 37-60, in English).
• John Matthew Smith: The Sons of Westwood. John Wooden, UCLA, and the Dynasty that Changed College Basketball. Champaign, IL, 2013: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07973-3 (in English).

Web links

• Mighty Macs Official Homepage Immaculata, PA, 2018. Retrieved April 15, 2018 (in English).
• Official homepage of Immaculata University Immaculata, PA, 2018. Retrieved April 15, 2018 (in English).
• The Mighty Macs in the Movie On: IMDB website; Seattle, WA, 1990-2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
• The 1972-73-74 Immaculata College in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame . On: Hoophall website; Springfield, MA, 2018. Retrieved May 13, 2018 (in English).

Remarks

1. ↑ The film, made in collaboration with Cathy Rush, names Nancy Johnston instead of Ann Sadowski.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Doug Feinberg (Associated Press): Immaculata - The First Women's Basketball Dynasty. On: ESPN website; Burbank, CA, October 19, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
2. ^ NN: US News Best Colleges. Immaculata University. On: US News website; New York, NY, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
3. ↑ NN: America's Top Colleges. Immaculata University. On: Forbes Media website; Jersey City, NJ, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
4. ^ NN: Immaculata Part of Formation of New Division III Conference. On: Mighty Macs website; Immaculata, PA, March 1, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
5. ^ Jone Johnson Lewis: History of Women's Basketball in America. A Timeline of Women's Basketball History 1891 to Present. On: Thought Co. website; New York, NY March 18, 2017. Retrieved May 27, 2018 (in English).
6. ^ Karen Guenther: Mighty Macs. On: The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia website; Camden, NJ, 2016-2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
7. ↑ Shelly Stallsmith: Four Generations of Title IX: Cathy Rush. On: PennLive website; Mechanicsburg, PA, June 23, 2012. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
8. ^ Sarah K. Fields: Female Gladiators. Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America. Urbana / Chicago, 2008: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-07584-1 (Page 65, in English)
9. ↑ (Agency report from the Associated Press): Cathy Rush Quits Immaculata Five. From: The New York Times, March 29, 1977, quoted from The New York Times website; New York, NY, March 29, 1977. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
10. ↑ Margaret Roach: Cathy Rush Quits in a Blaze of Trails. From: The New York Times, April 3, 1977, quoted from The New York Times website; New York, NY April 3, 1977. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
11. ^ Greg Garber: Where did it all begin? Just ask Immaculata's Mighty Macs. On: ESPN website; Burbank, CA, April 1, 2008. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
12. ^ Amy Farnum: The one that started it all. Forty years later, Immaculata's impact still immense. ( Memento of Nov. 7, 2014 on the Internet Archive ) Archived from: NCAA website; Atlanta, GA, October 14, 2011. Last accessed May 13, 2018.
13. ↑ Randall S. Shantz: Macs' Memories. On: Immaculata website; Immaculata, PA, 2018. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
14. ^ NN: The Mighty Macs. On: Sony Pictures Entertainment website; Culver City, CA, 2014. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
15. ↑ Cathy Rush: Reliving a landmark women's championship. On the ESPN website; Burbank, CA, October 17, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
16. ↑ Mechelle Voepel: Movie will introduce many to Cathy Rush. On the ESPN website; Burbank, CA, October 20, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
17. ↑ Michael Parsons: Coach Cathy Rush Gives a First Hand Account of "The Mighty Macs". (Interview) On: DC-Filmdom — Website; Washington, DC, October 20, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).
18. ↑ Kerry Weber: Immaculata's Miracle: Tim Chambers's 'The Mighty Macs'. On: America Magazine website; New York, NY, October 24, 2011. Retrieved May 23, 2018 (in English).